Who is F5?

BIG-IP VE Availability for the U.S. Intelligence Community on AWS

Tom Atkins

June 08, 2018

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AWS C2S, or Commercial Cloud Services as it’s otherwise known, is the name of the government program and contract vehicle that brought an air-gapped, top secretregion of the AWS cloud to the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) since 2014. This has allowed top secret government workloads to securely run atop AWS infrastructure and leverage AWS services while meeting all necessary IC compliance requirements.

Unsurprisingly however, whether deployed across heavily fortified government data centers or this secluded area of the AWS cloud, these top secret workloads require the most advanced app services and technologies on the market to keep potentially compromising data out of the wrong hands. And while it’s been possible for IC agencies to acquire these advanced application services from 3rd party ISVs in the past, the procurement process required that products be intensively screened and tested prior to implementation. This was both long and burdensome, yet utterly imperative to ensuring the security and integrity of the workloads.

Recently, however, AWS released a version of their marketplace tailor-made for customers of this top secret region, where all products and solutions are pre-vetted (and in some cases modified) to ensure they are up to IC standards – eliminating the need for these agencies to individually authorize their use. Subsequently, and after months of collaboration with AWS, F5 is pleased to announce the general availability of the BIG-IP Virtual Edition (VE) within this new marketplace, simplifying the deployment and acquisition process while also reducing time to market.

The BIG-IP VEs available through this marketplace are fundamentally identical to those available across any other supported cloud platform – offering the same breadth of services and functionality. This allows existing BIG-IP configurations and policies to be re-used and replicated in the C2S region, quickly and easily providing consistent application availability and security services for top secret workloads regardless of their deployment location. So whether it's intelligent traffic management and load balancing, application and network protection, or unified application access you’re looking for, the BIG-IP VE has got you covered.

Similarly to AWS’ commercial marketplace, this new marketplace facilitates both Bring-Your-Own-License (BYOL) and Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) licensing models, ensuring you have the flexibility to consume F5 industry-leading application services in a manner that best suits your individual needs. BIG-IP VEs are available through F5’s Good, Better and Best licensing bundles in either 25Mbps, 200Mbps, or 1Gbps throughput options.

And finally, as much as I’d like to showcase this newfound availability by linking to these marketplace listings, due to their top secret nature… I can’t. So you’ll just have to take my word for it. For those with the appropriate security clearance and access however, I will say that these listings are now discoverable by searching for "F5" in the Marketplace search bar.